[pdftex] Bug in pdflatex

[Robin Fairbairns]

Armin Fügenschuh <fuegenschuh at hsu-hh.de> wrote:

>    thanks for your reply. Actually, I developed this source code to use it
>    in the program LaTeXiT (from Pierre Chatelier (Cc),
>    see http://pierre.chachatelier.fr/latexit), which always uses the
>    nonstop mode for compiling. So when it did not finish and did not
>    return an error message, I first thought of a bug in LaTeXiT, but
>    Pierre advised me to ask the pdftex developers.

aha.  so latexit is specifically designed only for latex documents that
don't loop.

does it also prevent you from reading the log of the run?

the usual way to find a "loop" bug is to examine what the program has
done, so far.  (note, i regard a latex document as a program, here.)

we [the world at large -- not just pdftex maintainers] can't do that
(though you might be able...) since we have no access to your document,
or to your log.

you might be able to deduce where the problem occurred by chopping your
document into half, tidying the resulting files up, and compiling each
half.

then repeat the slicing test on the half that fails, and so on.  sooner
or later, you will have a chunk of "document" that is small enough that
even you _should_ be able to spot the problem.

if not, put it somewhere on the web that you have space (e.g., dropbox)
and try asking again, this time _with_ the evidence available.

Robin Fairbairns

UK TeX FAQ maintainer

http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html?label=maillists+askquestion